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PEPFAR-NPI
In December 2006, ServeHAITI was the recipient of an award funded by USAID under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief-New Partner’s Initiative (PEPFAR-NPI). This project includes HIV education, voluntary counseling and testing, prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, and care of person(s) living with HIV/AIDS.
The PEPFAR program began at the Health Center in 2006. The staff of the program is composed of 27 CHW (Community Health Workers), 5 TPT leaders (Traveling Prevention Team), a Care Nurse, a Laboratory Technician, a Social Worker, an Administrative Assistant, two drivers, a Program Manager, a Director and an Executive Director.
This program has three main objectives:
1) Reduce the prevalence of HIV by providing people with preventive information (Prevention)
2) Perform testing for HIV in the Heath Center (Screening)
3) Oversee the people living with HIV and their families (Supervision)
Prevention:
Prevention is done through the 27 community health workers (CHW) that have been recruited. These people are divided into the five sections served by the municipal program. Their job is to meet with families at community meetings or home visits to convey their message. For some particular groups, including young people, training sessions are often held to inculcate some concepts.
Screening:
Screening is done at the laboratory in the Health Center. The purpose is to conduct a rapid screening test, typically producing valid and reliable results in only a few minutes. Before a person's status is made known, he or she must have a pre-test counseling session where the social worker gives information on screening and the ensuing results. Subsequently, the test is done by the laboratory technician. If the first test is positive, another confirmatory test is done. Thereafter the person receives the post-test counseling where the social worker gives him/her the result. The people tested positive during the screening receive information on related matters and on the clinical management available at the Health Center. For pregnant women a program called PMTCT (Preventing Mothers To Child Transmission) is available and allows, as its name suggests, reduction of the risk of transmission of HIV-infected pregnant mother to her child. Currently we are implementing mobile screenings enabling more people to have access to the test. To date over 9,000 people have received the test since the opening of the program.
Supervision:
People with HIV are monitored by the social worker. The goal is to give these people a strong psychosocial support to help them cope with the disease. Stigma and discrimination is very strong in the area. Thirty people with HIV are currently being followed in this program (August 2009).
A new laboratory was completed in March 2008. This was funded by the PEPFAR-NPI grant and built by a team of ServeHAITI volunteers.
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